He laid his hands on her thighs and exerted gentle pressure to push her legs apart. “Spread your legs for me, mi querida.”
Querida meant something like “dear” or “darling,’ didn’t it? Any resistance she might have thought to offer melted in the honeyed warmth of his words. She did as he bade, parting her thighs, and gasped as one palm coasted up the inside of her leg. Her heart no longer beat in her chest; it pulsed there instead. Please, please, please. If he didn’t touch her there soon…no, now…she would die of anticipation. His fingers slipped between the slit in her drawers and brushed across the soft, swollen flesh.
Too much. Yet not enough.
“Wider,” he coaxed.
When she complied, he dragged one finger over just the right spot. She moaned, first with pleasure and then with disappointment as the digit glanced away.
“Gods,” he muttered unsteadily, sliding his fingers further along the folds and then back up again, “you really are wet. So sweet. So eager.”
Involuntarily, she raised her hips, chasing the contact, desperate for more. And after a few more experimental strokes, during which she was aware that he was studying her intently, seeking clues in her expression as to what pleased her, he settled into the perfect tempo, angle, and pressure. Pleasure spiraled inward and upward, her pulse pounding, body straining. The hackney swayed and bumped along the London streets, and she was dimly aware of the possibility that strangers might look in the windows to see a man and a woman sitting closely together, their faces mere inches apart, and draw certain, wicked—and correct—conclusions. But rather than quelling the tide that rose beneath his ministrations, the idea that someone might see and guess what they were about only intensified the surge.
She hovered on the precipice, a pinnacle so exquisite she wished it could last forever, even as she was certain she couldn’t bear another second. And then the moment was over, her body no longer in her control at all as bliss broke over her in wave after convulsive wave. In some distant corner of her mind, she was aware that Lucas had covered her mouth with his free hand to stifle her cry of pleasure.
Well, she had certainly never done anything quite like that to herself, she thought when the crisis had subsided into languid ripples. Opening her eyes, which she hadn’t even realized she had closed, she found Lucas looking at her with a rather smug grin.
“Liked that, did you?”
“Mm-hm,” was all she could muster the energy to say. She nestled her head against his shoulder, the white lace of her bonnet flattening against her hot cheek, and waited for the frantic pounding of her heart to subside.
Lucas withdrew his hand from between her lower limbs and began rearranging her clothing to some semblance of modesty. Honora rather suspected her skirt would be conspicuously wrinkled until her maid could press the fabric with a hot iron. She would have to take care not to be seen by her parents when she returned home lest the state of the garment raise uncomfortable questions.
With that thought, Honora realized with some chagrin that while her discomfort had been assuaged, at least for the nonce, Lucas’s had not. Of course, given the cut of his frock coat, she could not gauge his arousal by purely visual means, but when she tilted her head and peered up into his face, she noted a tautness to the set of his jaw and saw that his black pupils nearly engulfed his irises. As if he were holding himself on a very tight leash. As if he smoldered with the same fire he had quenched for her. Perhaps she could provide him with a similar respite.
The idea, once entertained, sparked a fresh and delicious heat in her veins. She wanted to touch him as he had touched her, to give pleasure for pleasure. And after the intimacies she had just permitted him, there was surely no cause for diffidence in offering to return the favor. Faint heart never won fair lady, after all; why should it win fair gentleman?
She laid her palm over his lower abdomen, near where she had felt his erection when he had kissed her, and was gratified to discover the same thick bulge beneath the concealment of his coat. His response, however, was both instantaneous and unexpected. He jerked in obvious surprise and bit out a curse. She started to draw away, fearing she’d hurt him, but he swiftly grabbed her retreating hand and placed it back in position, clamping his own over the top.
He emitted a ragged breath that was both a moan of pleasure and a groan of torment. “Gods, just don’t move and I’ll be fine.”
But she wanted to move. That was, in fact, the entire point. On the other hand, perhaps there was something about the male anatomy that she did not understand. If that was the case, she certainly would not want to do him injury.
“Does it hurt if I move?” she asked, resisting the urge to close her fingers around the ridge that pressed—eagerly, it seemed to her—into her touch.
His chest rolled with a deep, gravelly laugh, and he shook his head. “No, quite the contrary; it feels so good that if you move at all, I’m liable to spend in my trousers, and that would be quite a mess.”
“Oh,” she said, frowning. But at least she wasn’t hurting him. For if she were, she had no idea at all how the act of physical congress was to be achieved. Still, she was puzzled. “I don’t understand. If I understand you correctly, I just spent and—well, that was not particularly messy.” Wet, yes, but nothing that would cause any notice.
He gazed down at her, his eyes narrowed in some suspicion. “Do you truly not know what happens when a man reaches his climax?”
Stung, she responded tartly, “All I know is what I have been told and read, which is that a man spills his seed. But a seed is quite small. How much of a mess can one seed make?”
“Oh gods,” he murmured, squeezing the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “I forget, sometimes, how damnably hard the British nobility works to keep basic biological knowledge from women. It’s downright criminal.” With a grimace that was clearly not directed at her, he continued, “The seed of which you’ve heard and read isn’t like the seeds you would plant to grow a flower, but a thick, viscous fluid that spurts from a man’s cock when he comes. That fluid contains his seed, which is too small to be seen by the naked eye. There can, however, be quite a lot of this liquid and it’s quite sticky when it dries, which is why no man wants to lose control and spend in his trousers.”
Honora listened to this explanation with some fascination, for several things suddenly made more sense to her. For example, she had wondered when reading Every Woman’s Book why a sponge would be an effective means of preventing pregnancy, but now that she knew a man’s seed was a liquid, the idea seemed much more reasonable. More than that, however, Lucas had introduced her to two new uses of otherwise familiar words, and both were patently wicked and exciting. Just repeating them in her mind—cock, come—cause a fresh strand of desire to curl in her abdomen. She wanted to see his cock, to touch it, to do whatever would please him enough to make him come.
Her heart hammered against her ribs as she formed the most wanton question she had ever asked. “Could you not remove your cock from your trousers so you do not come inside them?”
He sucked in his breath, and every muscle in his body went rigid and motionless before he exhaled, slowly and deliberately. “I nearly came from the mere suggestion,” he said ruefully. “Under the circumstances, I think it would be kinder to wait until we reach my lodgings. I might not make a mess of my trousers, but I might well make one of the interior of this hackney, and that hardly seems polite to the driver or its future passengers.” Lifting her hand from his lap, he pressed a kiss to each of her fingertips. “Be patient with me so I can make this wonderful for you. For both of us.”
Well, when he put it like that, how could she object?
Chapter Eleven
“Nothing is more pathetic and self-serving than to prevent women from enjoying the same fruits men harvest for themselves. One must ask, what is it men fear? That, given the knowledge and freedom to choose their own way, women might throw over the whole male sex except for the necessary function of procr
eation and be better off for it; for what need would women have of us if we did not deliberately enfeeble them?” – Luke Evangelista
Much to Lucas’s relief, Mrs. Durant’s door was closed when they entered the foyer of the boarding house, although he could hear the clink of dishes that told him afternoon tea would soon be served. It would not do for him to be seen escorting a young lady to his rooms in the middle of the day. Clasping Honora’s hand in his, he hurried her up the two flights of stairs and ushered her into his rooms with all the desperate eagerness of a besotted bridegroom on his wedding night. Which, in some ways, he supposed this was, for this was as close as he would ever get to marrying Honora Pearce.
She preceded him through the door, every bit as impatient as he, but after he closed the door behind them, she turned wide, astonished eyes on him. “What on earth have you done?” she asked in obvious dismay.
What he had done was tidy up the place. Over the course of the previous evening and the better part of this morning, he had sorted through every stack of papers and periodicals he possessed, disposing of those he no longer needed and storing the items he wished to keep in several trunks he had purchased for the purpose. As a result of his efforts, his sitting room now actually provided places to sit and clear flat surfaces upon which one might set a cup of tea or glass of whiskey.
And he had done it for her. Because he’d wanted to make things nice for her. Because he’d been embarrassed by the appearance of squalor and chaos the room had presented when she’d made her unannounced visit the day before.
Thus, her remonstrance pricked his temper. “Nothing I shouldn’t have done long ago. The place was a fire trap, if nothing else.”
“But all of your research material,” she cried. “Please tell me you didn’t get rid of it!”
She looked so genuinely distressed at the possibility that his irritation dissolved instantly. At least now he understood why she was so perturbed by the change. Though, to be fair, he didn’t know why that explanation hadn’t occurred to him or why he’d been so quick to take offense.
But no, that wasn’t true. He did know. His reaction was born of apprehension. Of the fear that, sooner or later, she would prove herself false. All the evidence and every instinct he possessed told him that Honora was different from the other women of her station he’d known. That she was honest and genuine and every bit as besotted with him as he was with her. Else why would she, an unmarried and chaste lady of quality, decide to take him as a lover? But if he was wrong, it would slay him.
Shaking himself from his dark thoughts, he placed his hat on the rack and gave her a quick smile. “Never fear. I kept everything that could be of any importance or relevance.”
“I’m very glad to hear it,” she breathed, tugging at the ribbon beneath her chin, “for I’m sure I will have need of your archive for future voter pamphlets.”
She drew off her lacy white bonnet, revealing dark hair twisted into a chignon just above the nape of her neck and unadorned by the masses of face-framing curls that were currently so fashionable. A few multicolored strands—too short to remain confined at the back of her head—fell loose around her temples, and she tucked them behind her ears before handing him the bonnet to hang on the rack beside his own.
His heart twisted at the sight of the two head coverings resting side by side, each on its own peg. They should have looked comically incongruent next to one another—his black and stiff and sober and hers white and soft and frolicsome—and yet they seemed to belong together. Complementary. Like salt and pepper, like pen and paper.
Like husband and wife. Something they would and could never be.
Covering the knife-sharp stab in his chest, he narrowed his eyes in mock reproof. “I begin to think you are more enamored of my personal papers than my person,” he teased, though perhaps there was a tiny bit of truth beneath the jest.
Her laugh was musical and throaty. She tugged at the pinky finger of her left glove and pulled it free as she spoke before pressing her bare hand over her heart. “You wound me, dear sir. Can a woman not admire both the man and his manuscripts?”
By the gods, she was quick-witted. And very obviously flirting with him, for she fluttered her eyelashes up at him and began to draw off her other glove with a slow deliberation that she had to know was suggestive and seductive.
“She can,” he agreed, his voice rougher and thicker than he expected, “but the man is in much more immediate need of her attentions.”
Her eyes met his, the gray irises rimming large black pupils like clouds circling the center of a hurricane, and then traveled down the length of his torso to settle near his groin. “Or is it a particular part of the man that is in need?”
Oh, yes, definitely that, his aching cock supplied helpfully.
But definitely not that. Not yet, at any rate.
“Maybe,” he growled. “Come here.”
It was the first time he had ever issued anything resembling a direct order to her, and the barest hint of a frown crossed her features. But then she did as he bade, tossing her gloves onto a nearby table as she closed the short distance between them. When she was in arms’ reach, he scooped her up off the floor and carried her to his desk, where he set her back down again, facing him. As he’d imagined, she was just tall enough that her feet dangled a few inches from the floor and their eyes almost met. Cradling her velvety cheek in one palm, he ran his thumb across her jaw and she shivered, her lips parting in invitation of a kiss.
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
Her mouth puckered in a moue of disappointment.
“Before we take this any further,” he said, forcing back the tide of lust that threatened to engulf him, “I need to be sure you understand what will happen here. That you want what I want. And the only way I can do that is to tell you exactly what I want.”
Her cheeks colored. Her pupils seemed to double in size. “Oh.” She swallowed and licked her lips. “Very well. Tell me.”
Gods, at this rate, she would kill him before he even began his explanation. “First, there’s a question I must ask you.”
The corners of her lips deepened with wry amusement. “I think I can guess. You wish to know whether I am a virgin, do you not?”
He faltered, taken aback more by her directness than by the accuracy of her deduction, though on reflection, he should not have been. She seldom minced words. The least he could do would be to return the favor. “Yes, but not because I mean to pass judgment. Nothing could alter my feelings for you. I simply need to know whether I can take it for granted that you are familiar with the basic mechanics of sexual intercourse.” Bloody hell, he sounded like a college don, stuffy and didactic. One would think he was discussing Latin grammar or geometric equations instead of fucking.
“Well,” she said, pursing her lips thoughtfully, “I am a virgin, for as I told you that first evening, I never met a man before you who…interested me in that way. On the other hand, I am not so sheltered as to be entirely ignorant of the facts of life, for I spent many a summer in the country in the presence of farm animals.” She slanted him a look that was full of mischief but tinged with lust. “Based on this, I believe the male partner—that being you, in this case—inserts his cock—” here, she cupped her hand over the appendage she had just named, causing him to suck his breath through his teeth, “—into the female partner’s…” At this point, she hesitated, obviously stymied for a word. “Well, here,” she finished, removing her hand from his groin and resting it between her own legs in illustration.
Lucas wondered briefly whether a man could pass out from sheer, uncontrollable lust, but when he remained both conscious and upright, concluded that if it was possible, he hadn’t reached quite that stage yet. Damnably close, though. “Cunt,” he supplied hoarsely. “Though there are other words.”
A visible tremor coursed through her frame, and she pressed her palm more tightly to her mons. “Which ones do you use?”
This conversation wasn’t going
the way he had expected. So much for stuffy and didactic! He had never spoken in such a frank, carnal manner with a woman or—come to think of it—with anyone, though of course he knew all the dirty words. But there was something freeing and erotic about sharing those words with her. About the idea of telling her, in such dark and wicked terms, what he meant to do if she would permit him.
“That one, I suppose. Quim. Or pussy.” He pressed his hand over hers, where it rested between her legs. “I rather like ‘pussy’ because it’s metaphorical. When I pet you here, where you’re soft and downy like a cat, you purr.” He suited action to words, and she let out a sound that was not so much a purr as a growl.
Still, she managed to find enough of her wits to ask, “And if I stroke your cock, will you crow like a rooster?”
He let out a startled laugh. “Gods, I hope not,” he said on a chuckle, surprised to find that far from dampening his ardor, his amusement only increased his desire for her. Moreover, the things he wanted to do with her were legion and absolutely obscene. Things an innocent might reasonably find humiliating or distasteful.
Sobering, he said, “Querida, if I do anything you don’t like, anything you don’t wish, you have only to say so and I will stop. If you decide you don’t want to take things any further—at any time—that is your right. I would never take from you anything you are not willing to give. Do you understand?”
Her eyebrows drew together. “What is there beyond petting—”
“Some might call it frigging,” he put in.
“Is that so? Very well, then. What is there beyond frigging and…er…?” She blinked up at him expectantly. Adorably.
Fuckably.
“Fucking.”
“Hmph. I suppose I should have known that one. I’ve certainly heard my brothers say it. So, there is frigging and fucking and…?”
A Bit of Rough Page 9